


Of Hops and Barley

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Chapter and Verse (Varric Tethras x Min Hawke) [9]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Bartrand - Freeform, Carver - Freeform, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:02:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: After Varric suffers a serious loss, Hawke reminds him they now have something life-changing in common.





	Of Hops and Barley

Varric gazes into his pint.  The head of foam is rich, the scent of the beer thick with the sharp bitterness of hops and a sweet undertone of barley.  It’s a good pour of a good draft. **  
**

He stares into it until the bubbles of the foam dissipate and the beer goes flat.  He takes a drink, but it doesn’t taste like anything.

 _It didn’t happen, did it?_  he thinks dully.  Part of him says no, it’s all a dreadful chapter in one of his lesser books.  One of those rags chock full of melodrama, twists and turns at every moment, emotions oozing off the page.  

But if that’s the case, then why does he feel so hollow?

There’s a knock at his door.  “Varric, it’s Hawke,” she says urgently, her voice muffled through the wood.  “How are you doing?”

He leans back against his chair, and doesn’t answer.  He closes his eyes.  Perhaps he can pretend, a little longer, that nothing happened at all.

* * *

Hawke goes away the first night when Varric doesn’t answer.  He’s not much one for drinking to get drunk, but the barmaid brings six pints through the night and he does not send her away.  His sleep is staccato, splinters of sleep mixed harshly with hours awake.  It’s like he’s sick without the fever.  He feels like shit, and that suits him just fine.

Hawke goes away the second night when he doesn’t answer.  He drinks mechanically, but tries to cut back a little, thinking it might help him sleep.  He wakes up after two hours and lays there in the still dark, staring up at the ceiling, the fading fire guttering fitfully.  He still feels like shit, when he feels anything at all.

The third night, after Hawke knocks for five minutes solid, he hears the clinking of a lockpick.   _Maker’s balls._   He sighs when the door  _snicks_  open.  

Hawke’s face is uncharacteristically serious, even when glimpsed through the sliver of the open door.  He can see the determination in her eyes from across the room.  “Varric.”

“Really, Hawke?  Just tell me you didn’t bust the lock.  My tab is enormous enough without paying for another one,” Varric says from the chair in the corner near the fire.  Papers litter the desk surface beside him, but none of them bear ink.  His pen sits untouched, ink congealing at its tip.

Hawke sidles in, closing the door behind her.  “I’ve been getting better at it.  I think it’s fine.”

“So what do you want?”

“What do you think, you daft dwarf?  I want to see how you’re doing,” she says, pulling up a chair beside him.  She settles into it, looking at the flames licking the hearth, and pauses.  Shadows dance over her face.  He almost thinks the play of shadow on her cheeks and brow would be poetic, if it weren’t so sad, somehow.

When she speaks again, the cheer in her voice has faded to be replaced with something softer.  “I think it would be good if you talked about him, Varric.  If you truly don’t want to, I’ll leave you alone for now.  But just remember, I’ve been there myself.  I’m still there, sometimes.  Do you want to talk?”

Varric stops looking at her.  It’s easier that way.

The silence pulls and stretches between them, a creature alive with unspoken feeling.  He’s….  Shit, he’s afraid, isn’t he?  Afraid to talk plainly, afraid to share something real with someone who’s been there.  With this particular someone.

She waits, sitting there.  Letting him take the first move.  It's a terrifying prospect, one that he finds himself so, so grateful for.  

Varric wipes at his face with his hands.  He tries to speak, but it takes him a few attempts before anything comes out.  “I mean – it’s not like I  _liked_  Bartrand, Hawke.”  But the words choke in his throat like ash, and his eyes sting, and he’s suddenly drowning beneath memories of when he thought the fucking  _world_  of his big brother –

“Hey.  Hey,” Hawke murmurs.  She’s next to him now, her arm around him, and as he lifts his head from her shoulder he realizes his face is wet.  “I cried every night, the first few months,” she says.  “Don’t worry.  You’re allowed, you know.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.  That’s the worst part,” Varric mumbles.  “All of that – all of that from the red lyrium?  What it did to him –”  Images flash in his head, the awful moments of the other night, Varric’s words harsh and final, Hawke’s hand on the dagger, blood on the floor.  He’s dizzy with it all.

He had thought he knew what it was to grieve.  Bianca had taught him that lesson, again and again; his parents, too.  But this?  It’s different.  He remembers Bartrand as the smug bastard who’d abandoned him, as the feeble, frightened mess in the house in Hightown, as the big brother who’d led the way in their childhood games.  There’s a lifetime of memories, and they overwhelm.

He shudders, acutely aware of Hawke’s warmth beside him, her arm around his shoulders.  “I can’t  _do_  this, Hawke.”

“I know,” she says.  She presses a kiss to his temple, then pulls away.  “Me neither.”

“But you did do it.”

“You will, too.”  She sighs, curling up in her chair, sitting on her feet.  She keeps her hand on his shoulder.  “It’s dreadful.  Beyond the telling of it.  But it… shifts… it changes… you learn to live with it.  I think of Carver every day still.  I always will.”

“I don’t know that I’ll want to think about Bartrand that often,” Varric says, trying to recapture some of his control.  “He was an asshole.”

“Carver could be too, sometimes,” says Hawke, and a smile flickers about her lips.  “He never locked me in an underground thaig, but he did steal and burn all my knickers once.”

“A charming lad he must have been.”

“Quite.”  She leans back, pulling her arm away.  She crosses them over her chest.  “Anything you ever want to talk about, Varric, I’m here.”

“I can see that,” he says wryly.  “Even when I don’t let you in.”

“I had to be sure,” Hawke replies, utterly unruffled.  “Sometimes I needed to talk, but couldn’t start until Bethany or Mother really prodded me.  I had a feeling you might be the same, that’s all, and wanted you to know I’ll come bother you on the regular.  You can send me away if you like, but if you need to be prodded, well then, I’ll prod away.”

“How forward of you, Messere Hawke,” drawls Varric, and she snorts and elbows him in the side.

“You’re feeling saucy now, I see?  Good,” she laughs.  “That’s the only part that’s all right about the whole thing.  It’s impossible to feel the worst you’ve ever felt  _every_  single moment.  Funny shit does sneak in here and there, thank the Maker.”  She grins at him, and her smile dazzles.

“All right, Hawke,” he says.  “Come on.”  He slips down from his chair, brushing himself off.

“Where’re we going?” she asks, uncurling from her chair and rising to her full height.  She may not be tall for a human, but it’s more than enough to tower over him.  

“Pints, of course,” says Varric.  “You’re my guest tonight, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I think I am.”

They make their way downstairs, slicing through the crowd, and a few coppers later there’s ale for them both.  “Cheers,” says Varric.

“To Bartrand,” and she lifts her mug high.

“To Carver,” he says, and he raises his mug to meet hers.  They clink together, and they each take a drink of bitter hops and sweet barley.  It still doesn’t taste like much to him.  But he looks at Hawke, her face kind and open, and he takes another drink.  Maybe it’ll taste like something tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> My baby brother died 4 months ago at age 27 from an accidental overdose. I look back at stories of sibling loss now with new eyes and a new heaviness in my chest. Sure, those stories are "just" fiction, but we wouldn't be here on this site if fiction didn't carry weight, now would we? It can allow us to explore and work through things in a comfortable way, and I for one am gonna use it. Every little bit helps, right?
> 
> I've never seen a story where Varric really deals with Bartrand's death before. My friends who have also lost brothers have been invaluable in my healing, so I was glad to think that Hawke could fill that same role for Varric.


End file.
